JOHOR BARU, June 1 -- A multinational team from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has qualified for the finals of the prestigious International Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) 2025 in Midland, Texas, the United States.

Known as the UTM Rocketry Team, its members consist of third- and fourth-year undergraduates from the university's mechanical and electrical engineering faculties.

The team is led by Arykummara Thava Kumar, who said the initiative began in June last year.

He said in the early stages, the team was highly motivated and inspired to do something different.

"After several discussions, we settled on the rocket project that used propulsion technology.

"For us, the Rimau-1 rocket project was the perfect opportunity to ...